I found it Mark 😀
Mark12 Ah! I re…member Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Angels one-five over North Bucks.
Posts: 4,123
To wind up this thread
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The principal reason for this trip to Belgrade was to confirm the RAF serial and to understand why it now carried the RAF serial “JK808/B”.
The museum were happy to co-operate with removing engine cowlings etc to study data plates and what ever.
The first disappointment from an historical analysis was that the refurbishment had been very thorough, going deep into the structure. This was not a superficial external refinish.
All the cowling had been fully stripped both externally and internally and there was not the slightest evidence of any hand painted identities on the internal surface as is quite normal.
There was not the expected CBAF data plate in the cockpit. In fact the plate just read 17-545.
’17’ is code for the Castle Bromwich dispersal site of Alfred Davies Ltd at Leicester . This ’17’ code on Spitfire data plates is carried by several of the survivors, particularly the Czech/Israeli/Burmese Mk IXs with serials in the TE500 series. My interpretation of this is that as Castle Bromwich changed production to later marks the last of the IXs were displaced or finished in Leicester whilst the factory changed production and fixtures to the later 20 series aircraft. If I am correct, logically the change from Mk V to Mk IX would leave some sweeping up of the very last Mk Vs to be finished at Leicester.
I therefore think the Yugoslav Mk V is one of the very last Mk V’s built.
Enquiring why the museum now considered the aircraft to be “JK808”, they advised that had located the museum register of aircraft and components and the first item in the register and dated 24 July 1961 was Spitfire “9489”. The Yugoslav Airforce records show that 9489 was JK808/B – no problem.
Well there is a problem actually. In the early 1960s the Spitfire had been repainted and carried no serial, save for the code H as it was transferred from Kalemagdon Park, to Zemun and finally Surcin. During this period the tail flash transfered from being horizontal to vertical.
Although I can’t prove it I suspect that at the time the register was written the the aircraft carried no external Yugoslav serial at all. What I do know is that in April 1961 Ken Smy photographed both sides of this machine at Kalemagdon and it carried the Yugoslav serial 9486. 9486 equates to RAF serial MH592. A close examination of that serial shows it to have been applied with identical stencils as others in service and scrapped examples. Indeed it would seem that the boxing of the serial was due to a repaint at Kalemagdon or earlier where the serial was masked off, rather than go to the bother of stencil re-application. This was a common ‘in service’ practise.
The museum’s response to this is flat and unwavering. The register is correct, the aircraft must have been wrongly painted at Kalemagdon as at April 1961.
Not surprisingly I favour the theory that the register scribe inadvertently inverted one of his digits writing ‘9’ instead of ‘6’. The museum will not budge.
Subsequently I have noted a photograph of the last Yugoslav Spitfire to participate in an airshow in 1951 at Pancevo. Interestingly it is 9486.
Here it would have rested save for the recent publication of an excellent book by Tino Jelavic on 352 Squadron. My understanding is that Belgrade is the centre of Serbian culture. It was interesting to note that in the book there are several photographs of MH592/G in service, including shots of the serial MH592 boxed, as the camouflage was changed. MH592 was the personal aircraft of the unit commander Sqd/Ldr Soic, I believe a noted Croation War hero.
It has occurred to me that therein might lie the root of the problem.
For me the aircraft is MH592/G beyond reasonable doubt.
Mark
Photos:-
Current
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65113
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65114
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65115
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65116
Museum register
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65117
Both sides of 9486, boxed, at Kalemagden
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65119
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65144
For comparison the serial stencil and style 9476 in service
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65144
MH592, boxed, in service with 352 Squadron.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=65144
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